Legal Research and Advice
This domain tests three linked skills: locating authority efficiently, validating it so you are not relying on overruled or uncommenced law, and converting the result into advice a client can act on. Examiners often set a short client query and mark the answer on structure, authority and honesty about uncertainty.
Source hierarchy and weight
- Primary sources: legislation as currently amended, delegated legislation, and case law.
- Secondary sources - textbooks, commentary, articles - are persuasive only; never cite them as if binding.
- Weigh a case by court level, jurisdiction, ratio versus obiter, and date.
- Always check subsequent treatment: overruled, doubted, distinguished, or superseded by statute.
- Check commencement: an Act may be partly in force, with transitional provisions governing the facts in issue.
Method
- Frame the question precisely: jurisdiction, date of the facts, and the remedy sought all change the answer.
- Use a citator or update service on every authority before relying on it.
- Record the search trail on the file - it evidences competence and supports the fee note.
Writing the advice
Structure: the question; the short answer; the law; the application to these facts; the risks and options; the next steps. State your assumptions and the limits of the advice. Give a range where the law is unsettled rather than false certainty, and flag advice that depends on facts not yet established.
Worked example
A client asks whether a breach that occurred six years ago can still be sued on. Research: identify the limitation statute for the cause of action, the primary period, the discoverability test and any suspension or acknowledgment provision. Application: if the claimant could not reasonably have discovered the breach until three years ago, the claim is prima facie in time, but the defendant has an arguable limitation defence on the earlier trigger. Advice: issue promptly rather than negotiate at leisure, plead discoverability expressly, and preserve the documents that establish when knowledge arose. Note the assumptions - the date of knowledge is not yet evidenced.
Traps that cost marks
- Citing a first-instance decision as binding on a higher court.
- Quoting a headnote without reading the judgment.
- Missing an amendment or a commencement date.
- Advising without an assumptions and limitations section.
- Answering the wrong question because the remedy was never fixed.